Four Key Effects of the Houston Floods

Record amounts of rain have fallen in Texas since Hurricane Harvey hit on Friday. The immediate impacts may be obvious – people having to leave home, states of emergency, burst dams, streets underwater and at least nine deaths connected to the storm – but further down the line this will continue to reverberate.

Population

More than 30,000 people are temporarily homeless and of those who have been able to stay in their homes, tens of thousands were left without electric power.

Tens of thousands of people stayed overnight in shelters at the weekend, 9,000 of them in a convention centre that was opened up for them and hundreds in a private furniture shop.

Where will they go?

Another Gulf Coast disaster might offer a glimpse into Houston’s future. Twelve years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. The city’s population never bounced back; it still stands 50,000 below pre-Katrina levels.